Mathieu van der Poel might have said before that the 2026 UCI Road World Championships course in Montreal was not well-suited to him, but the Dutchman made the most of a positively bonkers elite men’s road race on Sunday, taking the bronze medal behind solo winner Brandon McNulty (USA) and just missing out on silver to Michael Matthews (Australia).
It seemed like a suicide move when Van der Poel went up the road with 11 other riders, including Belgium’s Wout van Aert, with 87km to go. It seemed even more risky when he continued attacking, going clear with Van Aert, Quinn Simmons (USA), Primož Roglič (Slovenia), Oscar Onley (Great Britain) and Athon Charmig (Denmark), and when he attacked that group again with 52km to go.
“It was, as expected, a very hard race, especially with the pace the French team was putting immediately from when we entered the local lap, and then it never stopped,” Van der Poel said, explaining that he chose to attack from so far out because the Voie Camillien-Houde each lap was so hard.
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Unlike Glasgow, when Van der Poel claimed his only rainbow jersey on the road in 2023 on a course with steep but short climbs, the 13.3km circuit in Montreal featured the Voie Camillien-Houde ascent, which is 1.8km long and averages 7.5%. The men tackled it on each of the 12 laps, and the route was expected to favour pure climbers like Isaac del Toro (Mexico) or Paul Seixas (France).
In the end, it was the climbers who suffered under the constant attacks rather than taking the race on from the front, in part because of Van der Poel and his fellow attackers.
“I just wanted to make sure I was already in front before the real climbers attacked, because if you see the riders that come across, it’s almost all climbers,” Van der Poel said. “I don’t know if I could manage to go with them on the climb. You never know if they stop cooperating a little bit behind. It’s also possible if we got one more minute in front, and then the race is maybe also over.
“I think it was a bit what I wanted to do today, just go in the offensive mode.”
It was just the style of racing that the Dutchman enjoys most, and he highlighted that it was largely because at Worlds riders compete without radio communication to the team cars.
“This is the best thing there is, racing without earpieces. That always makes for the best races,” Van der Poel said to NOS.nl. “I’m quite a fan of it. Then you really have to race on instinct, and that’s what I prefer to do.”
When the move was finally brought back with 35km to go, and soon after McNulty launched his solo move, Van der Poel never gave up believing in his second rainbow jersey.
“It was still quite a long way, but I saw immediately that McNulty’s attack was a good attempt,” Van der Poel said. “He has ridden well on this course before and it was a name I had in the back of my mind, but I don’t think it was up to me to react.”
Van der Poel bided his time as others tried to nail back the American, knowing he still had a chance to win from the group if McNulty was caught.
“I think it was not up to me to close gaps anymore. I knew I had to gamble a little bit to try and become World Champion. So yeah, I just made my decision there and stuck with it.
“Of course, it’s a World Championship, so I really wanted to go for the medal. I managed to recover also a little bit when the group caught me. The first time on the climb I was struggling, but then afterwards I could recover a little bit and then I was a bit less on the limit.
“I’m happy with the medal, and I think considering it was such a hard race, I did a really good performance to be on the podium, actually. I can be happy.”
Van der Poel let on that he is expecting his first child with partner Roxanne Bertels, and so has not yet made any plans to defend his world title in cyclocross in January.
“I haven’t thought about that yet. Becoming a father for the first time is very special. We’ll see.”
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